Ansonia merchants rally to cover field-repair costs

Patricia Villers, Register Staff

Published
12:00 am EDT, Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Police are looking for the person or persons who vandalized a large portion of the Ansonia High School football field at Nolan Athletic Complex on Wakelee Avenue earlier this week. Patricia Villers/Register

Police are looking for the person or persons who vandalized a large portion of the Ansonia High School football field at Nolan Athletic Complex on Wakelee Avenue earlier this week. Patricia Villers/Register

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Police are looking for the person or persons who vandalized a large portion of the Ansonia High School football field at Nolan Athletic Complex on Wakelee Avenue earlier this week. Patricia Villers/Register

Police are looking for the person or persons who vandalized a large portion of the Ansonia High School football field at Nolan Athletic Complex on Wakelee Avenue earlier this week. Patricia Villers/Register

Ansonia merchants rally to cover field-repair costs

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ANSONIA--The vandalism earlier this week at the football field at Nolan Athletic Complex totalling $15,000 has city officials and residents wondering why someone would commit such a disturbing act.

Mayor James Della Volpe said he is "disheartened" by the vandalism. "It's a senseless act and hopefully we find the person or persons who did this," he said.

Della Volpe was an assistant Ansonia High School Chargers' football coach for 27 years. He said sod has been ordered to replace the grass that has been torn up, and it should be planted by Friday.

Parks foreman Sean Rowley said Wednesday he was "pretty much over it." He said he was quite upset Tuesday over what had happened.

The damage over about 20,000 square feet of grass meant five months of hard work had gone "down the drain," he said. "The field was almost perfect Monday afternoon."

Rowley has been in charge of Nolan Field maintenance for two years.

He said he felt he "lucked out with the irrigation," because the vehicle only damaged one of the several sprinkler heads embedded in the grass. "Those are $80 a piece," Rowley said. "(Replacing) more than one or two gets expensive."

He said whoever did the vandalism drove onto the field and deliberately "waited until he got almost to the 50-yard line" before he started tearing up the grass.

Rowley also said there are security lights situated around the perimeter of the field. "It's not pitch black here at night," he said.

Youth football teams were scheduled to start practice there next week, he said.

Lt. Andrew Cota said police were notified of the "significant damage" to the field by someone who had gone there to exercise at about 6 a.m. Tuesday. He said police could not confirm the damage was caused by an all-terrain vehicle, as has been reported by several media outlets.

"We're not sure if it was an ATV or a small-sized vehicle," Cota said. The culprit managed to get the vehicle through a gate behind the field house, he said.

As of late Wednesday no arrests had been made in the case.

Downtown merchants are rallying to cover the cost of repairing the damaged fields.

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